Digital artists devoted days and years behind the scenes to help
create the movie magic seen in many of this year's Academy
Award-nominated films. In the categories for Best Visual Effects
and Best Animated Film (Feature and Short) in particular, many
artists relied on the same set of tools -- Digital Entertainment Creation (DEC) software from
Autodesk Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK).

"Great films depend on great storytelling and our technology
is designed to enable artistic vision," said Marc Petit,
senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. "We
congratulate the multitalented teams of artists from North America,
New Zealand, Europe and Asia, and we are proud of Autodesk
software's role in helping them create these extraordinary
movies."

Best Visual Effects

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part
2" -- UK-based visual effects (VFX) studios Double
Negative, MPC and Framestore each used Autodesk Maya
3D animation and rendering software to help create the visually
extravagant effects for this final installment in the Harry Potter
franchise. Double Negative VFX Supervisor David Vickery said,
"Maya has been the lynchpin of our pipeline since 'Goblet of
Fire.' For this film, Maya helped us build a fully
computer-generated (CG) Hogwarts in a massive 3D environment,
including a spectacular mountain range and an animated
fire-breathing dragon digitally modeled with Autodesk
Mudbox software." MPC VFX Supervisor Greg Butler added,
"From the first film in the 'Potter' series through to this
film's final shot, MPC has relied on Maya for modeling, rigging and
lighting." Andy Kind, Framestore VFX supervisor said,
"Autodesk's Maya once again was our go-to tool, enabling us to
bring to life the magic of the Chamber of Secrets for Ron and
Hermione's first kiss, as well as Harry's vision of Heaven. We
couldn't have done any of the eight films without it!"

"Hugo" -- VFX studio Pixomondo
managed a global production team across 10 of its 11 facilities in
North America, Europe and Asia for this richly detailed reimagining
of 1930s Paris. The worldwide team worked for over a year using a
production pipeline comprised of Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max for animation, rendering,
character rigging and modeling; as well as Autodesk
MotionBuilder for motion capture and animation. VFX Supervisor
Ben Grossmann said, "The interoperability of Autodesk tools
helped us meet tight deadlines and bring Martin Scorsese's magical
vision to the big screen."

"Real Steel" -- Visual effects
powerhouse Digital Domain, motion-capture specialists Giant Studios
and virtual production innovators Technoprops delivered "Real
Steel" within an impressively efficient 71-day production
schedule. The close collaboration between the three companies and
an Autodesk toolset helped create this realistic and thrilling
action movie with a believable and captivating robot and human
relationship. VFX Supervisor Erik Nash said, "The on-set
real-time interoperability of Maya and MotionBuilder enabled
tremendous creative freedom for the entire production
team."

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" --
Caesar, the CG chimpanzee performed by Andy Serkis is a creative
milestone for Weta Digital in New Zealand. Weta used Maya and
MotionBuilder as the core of its creative production pipelines for
its groundbreaking visual effects and performance capture.
Sebastian Sylwan, chief technology officer at Weta said,
"Creating a believable and realistic CG character like Caesar
required providing our artists with the right tools and innovative
technology that allowed them to iterate and express their
creativity. We developed our own software to perfect performance
capture, hair, eyes and muscles amongst others, using Maya and
MotionBuilder as a backbone." Canada-based Image Engine
contributed previsualization for the film and also took advantage
of a Maya-based pipeline.

"Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon"
-- The extraordinarily detailed Transformer robots contain up to
50,000 million polygons rendered in stereoscopic 3D by lead visual
effects houses Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) with studios in
San Francisco and Singapore and Digital Domain. ILM used the
following Autodesk DEC software tools in its pipeline: 3ds Max for
digital environment work; Autodesk
Flame as part of its proprietary SABRE high-speed compositing
system; and Maya as the core tool for animation, rigging and
layout. Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor on 'Transformers:
Dark Side of the Moon' said, "As effects work continues to
grow in complexity, it is more important than ever that our artists
have access to best of breed tools and by using Autodesk's Digital
Entertainment Creation software, ILM is able to continue to create
groundbreaking visual effects."

Best Animated Feature Film

"Kung Fu Panda 2" and "Puss in
Boots" -- Both movies earned not only Academy Award
nominations for Animated Feature Film for Dreamworks Animation
(DWA), but also were two of the top three grossing animated films
of 2011.* DWA continues to creatively push technology to imbue
animated characters with huge personalities, and both films used
Maya. Phil McNally, stereoscopic supervisor on both movies said,
"Either on our own or in concert with Autodesk, we can develop
tools in Maya to specifically address the challenges of
stereoscopic 3D. Maya gives us that intuitive flexibility, or the
ability to see what we're doing -- while we're doing it -- in
3D."

"Rango" -- "Rango," the
story of a weird lizard's quest for identity, was ILM's first
animated feature. The film presented some daunting creative and
technical challenges: Rango's face alone required over 300
controllers to achieve the range of performance needed for the
1,100 shots he appears in. On top of which, Rango was just one of
well over 100 characters that populated the film. "All of
these characters had some combination of scales, feathers, or fur
and all had clothing. We strove to create a very tactile world for
Rango," said ILM's Hal Hickel, animator director on the film.
"We wanted to create the illusion that if you could reach out
and touch objects in the frame you'd know exactly what they would
feel like, so it was very important that our software enable us to
show as much detail as possible at each phase of the process. This
allowed us to make certain the performances would translate to the
big screen. Maya was great at letting us do that."

Other Categories

"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris
Lessmore"-- nominated for Short Film
(animated) -- Moonbot Studios in Louisiana used Maya to help
create this poignant and humorous allegorical film.

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" --
nominated for five awards -- Digital Domain created
digital doubles, matte paintings, animation and set extensions
using both Maya and 3ds Max. Method Studios contributed to 101 VFX
shots, including a fully CG train sequence through a snow-covered
landscape using Maya, Flame and Autodesk
Flare software. Blur Studios created the amazing title sequence
using a combination of 3ds Max for animation and Autodesk
Softimage for keyframing.

"La Luna" -- nominated for Short
Film (animated) -- Pixar used Maya and Pixar's own Renderman
to create this mystical coming-of-age story.

"The Muppets" -- nominated for
Original Song -- LOOK Effects used a combination of Flame,
Flare and Maya to help bring these beloved characters to life in
this box-office hit.

"The Tree of Life" -- nominated
for three awards including Best Picture -- Method Studios used
Maya to help create the fully CG 4K (4096 × 3112 pixels per frame)
sequence for the film's "Microbial" section, which plays
effectively alongside practical and mixed-technique approaches.
Method's EVP Dan Glass was also the film's overall senior visual
effects supervisor. Prime Focus used Maya, 3ds Max and Mudbox to
create the wonderfully realistic dinosaur sequences, dedicating a
team of 50 artists to achieving Terrence Malick's vision for these
scenes.

"War Horse" -- nominated for six
awards including Best Picture -- UK-based Framestore used Maya
to help create the equine digital double, barbwire VFX integration,
digital environments and clean-up on 200 shots for Steven
Spielberg's epic drama. Hollywood and London-based The Third Floor
also previsualized key sequences using a toolset that includes
Maya.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment
software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture,
building, construction, and media and entertainment industries -
including the last 16 Academy Award winners for Best Visual Effects
- use Autodesk software to design, visualize and simulate their
ideas. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk
continues to develop the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art
software for global markets. For additional information about
Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

* Source: Box Office Mojo

Autodesk, AutoCAD, Flame, Flare, Maya, MotionBuilder, Mudbox,
Softimage and 3ds Max are registered trademarks or trademarks of
Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the
USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark
of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other brand
names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective
holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services
offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without
notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical
errors that may appear in this document.